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The Church in Nation-States

Empire In Its New Mode

 

Photograph: The Church of St. Helen's, Bishopsgate in the shadow of "The Gherkin," which houses corporate offices in London's financial district.  Photo credit: Roger Vander Steen | Public Domain, Wikimedia. The church building dates from the 12th century, which began with the London Council of Churches abolishing slavery in 1102 AD.  It serves an evangelical Anglican congregation.  In 1608, Sir Alberico Gentili, founder of the study of international law, was buried there.  Its location at the heart of the former British Empire and center of financial capitalism - which is dependent on the rule of law of nation-states - exemplifies the challenge of being a faithful Christian community in the midst of modern nation-states. 

 

Introduction

The selection of perspectives on church history in this section — Church and Empire — has been guided by three factors: (1) to demonstrate that Christianity has not been a “white man’s religion”; (2) the study of empire as a recurring motif in Scripture by recent biblical studies scholars; and (3) explorations of biblical Christian ethics on issues of power and polity, to understand how Christians were faithful to Christ or not.  Christian relational ethics continues a Christian theological anthropology that began with reflection on the human nature of Jesus, and the human experience of biblical Israel. The issues in this section overlap with those raised in the section on Politics, International Relations: Global Issues.

This section explores the experience and activities of Christians navigating the Nation-State. In Nation-States, one coalition of peoples and interests tends to dominate other people groups. Christians need to be aware of this pattern, and in many cases, counteract it, especially when Christians demographically are part of the ruling coalition.

 

Messages and Resources on the Church in Nation-States

Politics and God’s Restorative Justice

Links to a section of our website with created and curated resources on Christian relational ethics and how they would be expressed, primarily in the context of the United States.

 

The Myth of Christian Ignorance

Links to our page curating concise resources on Christian attitudes prior to the Enlightenment towards scientific and philosophical knowledge, learning, medicine, arts, peace and war, politics and justice, economics and indebtedness, slavery, and human dignity. The “Enlightenment” was portrayed as “light” after the “darkness” of Christian influence in Western Europe. But this is a self-congratulatory myth.

 

Reflection on the Presidential Election of 2016

An reflection written on November 30, 2016, which voiced a concern about how white American evangelicals are turning towards Vladimir Putin and the Russian Orthodox Church as a model of a state-church partnership, in order to politically oppose Muslims and pro-gay voices.  This continues to unfold.  "The Fellowship Foundation" aka "The Family" in Washington DC and the National Prayer Breakfast being a way to work around the State Department. 

 

White American Evangelical Political Attitudes and Behavior: Explanation and Correctives

White American evangelical political attitudes can be characterized by the debate between John Winthrop and Roger Williams, and their respective attitudes towards Native Americans, slavery, fairness, and faith in the civic space.  This is a presentation also explores Scripture and church history to argue that Roger Williams was correct.  Given to the staff of Emmanuel Gospel Center, Apr 18, 2018, as a follow-up to how Christian restorative justice impacts ministry; audio file here 

 

Why Question Atheism from a Political and Moral Perspective?

A presentation on how the Enlightenment tradition gave birth to racist liberal democracies on the one hand, and Marxist communism/state-capitalism on the other.  The Enlightenment tried to dethrone Christian faith from political theory and the Christian church from political power.  Thus, the ideology of the individual and the nation-state went to these two extremes, colored by the presumption of cultural, intellectual, and spiritual superiority that Europeans had about themselves.  Protestant heresies, fed by self-imposed Protestant ignorance about the church prior to Luther, and combined with a growing nationalism, accelerated the problem.  Race became the badge of membership in Empire or the token of citizenship in the Nation-State.  Authentic Christianity, therefore, must stress Pentecost (a principled cultural diversity) as the expression of Jesus' new humanity for all humanity.  

 

Human Dignity: Does Every Individual Matter?

Science, philosophy, existentialism, other religions, and double-predestination based theologies mean that some human beings do not matter. Only a fully Trinitarian theology with a medical substitutionary atonement can provide an adequate foundation.

 

God as the Foundation of Human Rights

Text of a message on Genesis 1 - 11, which was aware of other Ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean creation stories, and argued against them, as shown by the literary analysis of these literatures.  Topics of disagreement include:  the value of every human being; the relations of humans and God/gods; the reason for catastrophes like the Flood; the resolution or movement.

 

The Kingdom You No Longer Want

Text and slides of a message on Luke 13:17 - 21, given at Neighborhood Church of Dorchester, Aug 13, 2017 after the Charlottesville, VA white supremacist violence on August 12, 2017.

 

Race:  Can Faith Help? - Has Christian Multiculturalism Failed?

Text of a message on 1 Corinthians 9:19 - 22, which was given as message 1 at a retreat for Boston College Asian Christian Fellowship in January, 2011.

 

Race:  Can Faith Help? - Learning to See Oppression

Text of a message that introduced the interpersonal vs. systemic and by design vs. by default distinctions to help us understand racial injustice and its ongoing legacy. This was given as message 2 at a retreat for Boston College Asian Christian Fellowship, in January, 2011.

 

Race:  Can Faith Help? - Racism, Wealth, and Power

Text of a message given on Zaccheus in Luke 19:1 - 10 as a Jew “wanting to be Roman,” with my experience as a Japanese-American “wanting to be white” at different points in my life, Asian Americans wanting to “be white” in the U.S., and Boston College wanting to “be white” among historically WASP Ivy League universities. This message highlights how “race” and “whiteness” has always been centered but not strictly bounded, for the purpose of protecting wealth and belonging. This was given as message 3 at a retreat for Boston College Asian Christian Fellowship, in January, 2011.

 

Race:  Can Faith Help? - Jesus' One New Humanity

Text of a message on Ephesians 2:14 - 16 that highlights the horizontal, human implications of Jesus carrying “the hostility” to death and rising as a new humanity. This was given as message 4 at a retreat for Boston College Asian Christian Fellowship, in January, 2011.

 

Why Did God Choose a "Chosen People"? Why Not Just Skip Right to Jesus?

Links to a page on our website addressing important questions when considering the question of race, because we have to explain why God needed to work with biblical Israel as a “chosen people” in the first place, to protect and defend them at times, and to purify them at other times. Due to how this history is easily misappropriated, we have to examine not only why these interpretations of the Bible are wrong, but also why they happened in the first place.

 
 
 
 

Christians Challenging Nation-States:

 
 

Christians Capitulating to Nation-States:

 
 

Church and Empire: Topics:

This page is part of our section on Church and Empire. These resources begin with a biblical exposition of Empire in Church and Empire and the meaning of Pentecost in Pentecost as Paradigm for Christianity and Cultures, then grouped by region: Middle East, Asia, Africa, Europe, Americas, then Nation-State, with special attention given to The Shoah of Nazi Germany.